There are three basic ways the shutdown that started on December 22 could end: Trump gives up the $5 billion he wants for the wall, Democrats give Trump his wall money, or both sides come up with a face-saving deal.

In a tweet on Friday, Trump warned: "word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it".

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is expected to be elected speaker on Thursday and will push for a vote as one of her first moves.

The high-stakes move to reopen the government will be the first big battle between Trump and Pelosi as Democrats come into control ready to reassert the power of the legislative branch and confront the White House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., indicated last week he will not hold a vote on any spending plan that Trump will not sign, meaning a solution to the shutdown will depend on a deal between Trump and Democratic leaders. "Nancy Pelosi needs to come back from Hawaii - less hula, more moola for the DHS, Customs and Border Patrol, funding our border security". "While one White House official says they're willing to compromise, another says the president is holding firm at no less than $5 billion for the wall". The wall isn't so much a wall, they say, as well, not a wall. Democrats refuse to approve funding and the president - who has made hardline immigration policies a centrepiece of his presidency - has retaliated by refusing to sign off on a wider spending bill, leaving some 800,000 federal employees without pay.

Kellyanne Conway, a close Trump advisor, said on "Fox News Sunday" that whether the border barrier was a "wall" or not was "a silly semantic argument", adding that the president had already compromised, since he had originally asked for $25 billion.

Trump does not want to settle for less than $5 billion in funding for the border wall. But a previous attempt to reach a compromise that addressed the status of "Dreamers" - young immigrants brought to the USA illegally as children - broke down past year as a result of escalating White House demands.

The two funding bills will have to be formally introduced Wednesday, when the new 116th Congress is called into session and Democrats assume majority control of the House.

- Trump wins: The name of the game in shutdown fights is avoiding blame.

As always, Trump is inclined to believe that he's winning whenever he's dominating discourse with his opinions and behavior, however unusual and reprehensible they may seem.

It should be pointed out too that Mr Kelly himself had said early in the Trump presidency that it would be a wall, and not a fence.

Democratic leaders in both chambers, meanwhile, have likewise promised that they are content to allow the government to remain partially shut down forever rather than fund a border wall, which means that unless either side blinks, the government will remain shut down for the foreseeable future.

That appeared to be a reference to a tweet of his over the weekend in which Trump blamed Democrats for the deaths of two migrant children while in custody of the Department of Homeland Security.

What is Trump's strategy for Syria and the region?
The Iraqi prime minister recently said Iraqi troops could deploy into Syria to protect Iraq from threats across its borders. Trump has not announced any plans to remove any of the 5,200 troops in Iraq and has never made any promises that he will.

Saudi 'not in crisis' over Khashoggi affair: new FM to AFP
Jubeir was effectively demoted to minister of state for foreign affairs, the decree added without offering any explanation. Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Thursday carried out a limited cabinet reshuffle, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

Apple to start making high-end iPhones in India next year
It should be noted that it's now unknown whether Foxconn is planning to move its existing iPhone assembly from China to India. It is however unclear whether the production will be confined to assembly or include any component production in the country.

Kim warns North Korea could consider change of tack
The New Year speech is a key fixture in the North Korean political calander, setting the agenda for the year to come. Kim met US President Donald Trump to discuss denuclearisation in June 2018 but with few results so far.

CenturyLink outage impacting western Washington 911 services
"The CenturyLink service outage is therefore completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling". At North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, Colorado, doctors and nurses for a time had difficulty accessing patient records.

The minimum wage in MA will increase on January 1
The GOP-led state legislature in MI took extraordinary steps to deny a wage increase for hundreds of thousands of workers. The minimum wage for employees of New York City businesses with 11 or more employers will rise from $13 to $15 an hour.